Daily Report: A Full Afternoon

Only a fair morning of work today.


Town Restaurant in Cagayan De Oro
is the best fine dining in town,
and very inexpensive.After noon, Epril and I went out for the day. First, it was off to Town, my favorite restaurant, for lunch. We went crazy: We had one soup and two appetizers, Epril had the sirloin while I had lasagna, and we drank smoothies.

After that, I got my first ticket from the traffic police (the "RTA" they are called here, "Road and Transportation Authority). Regular police apparently don't do traffic enforcement. I made an illegal left turn. After getting the ticket, I noticed that at pretty much every intersection in Cagayan, there is admidst all the bricabrac signage and birds nest of wires, a faded little "no left turn" sign. Well, they were nice about it. A kano getting a ticket drew quite a crowd of locals, and by the time the event was over, the green-shirted traffic cops and myself had drawn a crowd of 20 or more. (No, I didn't offer a bribe to the traffic cops... and they didn't ask. I haven't lived here long enough to try that out.)

I renewed my visa today. As always, such an expedient and pleasant experience. Franky asked in the comments section below what parts of living in The Philippines are cheaper than Pattaya. Aside from housing and the cost of drinks at bars, the cost of keeping my visa current is about one tenth what it was in Thailand... one twentieth when you factor in the opportunity cost of lost work.

From there, it was off to pay the rent and a few bills.

Then, we tried to go pay the traffic ticket. Surprisingly, the place where you pay traffic tickets is 3 miles out to the edge of town in the harbor area, in this nearly-abandoned "City Engineer" compound, up some stairs, and into this forgotten-looking office where some guys were sitting around a table filling out reports. Unfortunately, the cashier had already left for the day, so the ticket has to wait until Monday to be paid.

Next, Epril and I went to Spooks for their weekly Friday expatriate get-together. I chatted with all the guys and had a few beers ($1 per bottle).


Epril sitting on our balcony.Then it was home. I was going to take the girls out tonight to see a movie, but Susan had her boyfriend Ricky over (he's a nice police officer that lives up the street) and they seemed to be enjoying some TV, and I figured that since the next movie didn't start until 9:00, we'd just skip it.